


With Great Hotness Comes Great Responsibility

by katmarajade



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Humor, Knight Bus, New Year's Eve, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 18:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3080849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katmarajade/pseuds/katmarajade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her dramatic exit leaves poor Lavender stranded in her party dress and without her wand on New Year's Eve. Enter her Knight (Bus Driver) in shining armour …</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Great Hotness Comes Great Responsibility

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luvscharlie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvscharlie/gifts).



> Written for luvscharlie as part of my annual holiday gift fic series.

A dramatic exit was a girl's best friend. That was what Lavender Brown had always believed. Until tonight, that was.

It was New Year's Eve and she was dressed in her absolute best—a slinky black dress, glittery gold pumps, and gorgeous diamond-like jewellery that had taken her two weeks of Transfiguration practice to get right. She had thought that this would be the night when her romance with Roger Davies became official—and public. Instead, that sleazy, ambitious, cutthroat, multiple-women-juggling, mediocre-penis-having wanker had proposed to Daphne Greengrass! In the middle of the bloody New Year's Eve Ball! Obviously, Lavender hadn't wanted that ugly diamond ring in the first place. It probably had an engorgement charm on it anyway to make the pathetic tosspot look more impressive on his big night.

Her first instinct had been to destroy him, but she'd settled for throwing a crystal flute of exceedingly expensive champagne in his face and a hushed whisper to his new fiancée about making sure to get him checked out for diseases. (It wasn't like the woman wasn't aware of his fun on the side and she hadn't announced it publicly, so Lavender thought that was about as mature as she was willing to be, given the rather horrible circumstances.) She'd capped it off with a perfect hips-swaying, head-up-high sashay right out the front door.

It really had been a perfect exit. However, now that she was standing on the kerb in the snow, shivering her perfectly-formed arse off, she was recalling some of the slightly problematic aspects of her choice. Her wrap (Charmed to keep her warm despite being only a gorgeous bit of silk) was still with the Coat Check, and so was her wand! After several years of idiots drinking too much and getting into ill-advised duels, the party had started checking wands at the door. While no one liked being without his/her wand, this was _the_ party of the season. If you wanted to drink fancy champagne, rub elbows with the who's who of Wizarding society, and see the spectacular Fireworks display that the Greengrasses put on every year in the garden, which Lavender most certainly did, then you smiled and handed over your wand.

Freezing to death on the corner sounded an awful way to go, but returning to the party would destroy the entire amazing exit, which she was sure they were all rumbling about. Naturally there was never any decent Muggle transportation around these old Wizarding mansions either—secrecy and other such rot. Bloody inconvenient, if you asked her.

In a fit of pique, Lavender threw her hands in the air, only to be startled out of her wits as a giant three-decker purple bus suddenly appeared, hurtling towards her at breakneck speed. Stumbling backwards, she landed in a pile of snow, and as she struggled to her feet in her ruined dress, she swore profusely.

"Hello, Miss!" Lavender's head shot up as she first noticed the scraggly man in the purple uniform.

"What the bloody hell was _that_?" she hissed. "You ruined my dress!"

The man was probably only a few years older than she was but still had a boyish face with brandy brown hair, a rather pointed nose, protruding ears, and acne scars along his jawline. His big ears flamed red, but she couldn't tell if it was from well-deserved shame over knocking her into a snow bank or just the cold.

"I'm sorry, ma'am! It's my first day driving and there's a bit of a learning curve, if you don't mind me saying. See, Ernie, the normal driver, he called in sick and there was no one else willing to come into work tonight, so I thought I'd try my hand—help out the stranded witch or wizard, yeah?"

"And what a bang up job you're doing," Lavender said. Her tone was still harsh, but it had gentled a bit when she realised that this was her ticket home. She gave him her widest, saddest eyes, along with a long, slow blink to highlight her extended lashes, and tried again. "So, do you think this little incident earns me a free ride home …" she squinted at his name tag before finishing, "Stan?"

Stan flushed deeply and muttered something incomprehensible while Lavender kept him pinned under her puppy dog eyes. When he finally nodded, she beamed at him, and poor Stan almost fell into the same snow pile that she'd tried out earlier. She really had to remember to rein in her smiles. It certainly wasn't her fault that she was so sexy and gorgeous, but with great hotness came great responsibility, and she needed to be mindful of the poor sots so easily overwhelmed by her beauty. Now that she had a free ride home, she was feeling mildly more charitable.

Seeming to have recovered his wits, Stan gallantly helped her up the stairs onto the deserted Knight Bus. She eyed the large beds warily, wondering what sort of operation this bloke was trying to run, but when he stumbled and began rambling on about hot cocoa and toothbrushes, she decided he wasn't much of a threat. She gave him a smile and he rushed back up to the front.

Still freezing in her damp dress, Lavender stepped out of her glittering gold heels and tried to unfasten her dress. She managed the first few buttons, but soon had to give up. Unfortunately, she'd had to use Magic to get the damn thing on in the first place, and there was no way she was able to reach back to undo the miniscule buttons without the help of her wand. She sighed, looking over her shoulder at the long line of tiny buttons that clung to her curvaceous back.

Moments later, Stan reappeared holding a mug of cocoa and a purple toothbrush.

Looking up at him from over her shoulder, the black fabric slipping slightly and revealing the smooth skin of her back, she called, "Could you be a dear and help me with this?"

The loud clatter resulted from a dropped mug and a fainting bus driver. Lavender sighed and sank onto the bed, hoping the duvet would be enough to warm her despite the wet fabric clinging to her skin. It would just have to do, at least until the bus driver woke up enough to assist her—bad form there, fainting before aiding an obvious damsel in distress. She shook her head and snuggled under the navy blue bedclothes, shivering slightly and feeling sorry for herself.

Sometimes it was terribly hard to be Lavender Brown. 


End file.
